


The Z-Files - 1 - Dust

by Jellyfish_Merchant_Of_Love



Series: The Z-Files [1]
Category: The X-Files, Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Character Interpretation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Blood and Injury, Conspiracy Theories, Death, Exsanguination, Gen, Gun Violence, Horror, Leaning on the Fourth Wall, Mystery, Police Procedural, chupacabra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 12:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20760713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jellyfish_Merchant_Of_Love/pseuds/Jellyfish_Merchant_Of_Love
Summary: After stopping Dawn Bellwether's terrorist coup, Z.P.D. officer Judy Hopps is partnered with rising-star detective Nicholas ("Fox") Wilde, who is determined to explore the mysterious phenomena occurring within and around the city of Zootopia.On their first case together, Nick and Judy investigate the bizarre death of a gas station attendant in Sahara Square, one of a chain of homicides stretching back centuries.





	The Z-Files - 1 - Dust

ZPD HEADQUARTERS  
ZOOTOPIA CENTRAL DISTRICT

"'Donovan Goatry, age fifty-seven, was discovered dead outside of a gas station on the outskirts of Sahara Square where he worked as a night attendant. The station manager, a camel named Alwan Allbeige, found the body when he arrived to take over the station the next morning. Mr. Allbeige immediately called the Z.P.D. and officers were dispatched to the scene.

"Initial examination of the body confirmed time of death to be somewhere between 1 A.M. and 3 A.M. the night before. An autopsy was performed by Dr. Friedrich Chezel. The coroner determined cause of death to be acute blood loss caused by three stab wounds to the back by an unknown implement. The victim was found to be almost completely..."

Judy Hopps flipped to the second page of the police report. Her pink nose wrinkled as she articulated the word: "...'exsanguinated.' Oh! And there's pictures. Nick? Why are we looking at this?"

The dank, musty storage room in the Z.P.D. basement had been evacuated and converted into a office three weeks prior, yet it hadn't managed to become an office in either name or spirit. A radiator leak from the floor above was browning a patch of linoleum in one corner, and piles of old case files were stacked throughout the room atop chairs and in corners and over a desk like snowdrifts. The rats (former file clerks) had left droppings all over the floor: bagel crumbs, micro-stationary, tiny Styrofoam coffee cups...

The aftermath of the Bellwether affair and Judy's reinstatement had drained what little generosity Chief Bogo possessed. However pleased he had been at the closure of the night howler case, his mood had quickly soured once the new mayor arrived. Scuttlebutt was that police chiefs who arrest mayors were not known to have long careers, and there were rumblings of discrimination lawsuits in the wake of Bellwether's unopposed "restructuring" of the Zootopia Police Department's predator officers. 

As a result, the Chief implemented an impromptu "out of sight; out of mind; out of trouble" policy, leaving Judy and her new old partner up to their ears in filth.

("I thought rabbits and foxes liked holes," The chief had goaded ominously when Judy had gone to him to complain.)

Even so, Judy looked at Nick now, his nose buried in an antique filing cabinet and bright red tail flagging behind, and she couldn't help but wonder whether this pit wasn't somehow his fault.

"A little over fifty years ago," Nick said over his shoulder, "a family of sheep were on a road trip passing through Little Gobi to visit some relatives in Tundra Town. They stopped to camp out for the night. The family never showed up. They were found three days later by a passing tour bus, when one of their tents blew across the highway. All eight of them had been..." Nick looked back and grinned, mimicking Judy's voice. "Ex-san-guin-ated."

"That's horrible."

"What's really bad is that sixteen years later, the exact **same** thing happens again, to a yak staying at a hotel in Sahara Square for a management expo. Yak leaves his hotel on a nightly constitutional. His remains are found the morning, discarded along a back stretch of road some six **miles** away. Three puncture wounds; drained of blood."

"How is **that** worse than the family of sheep?"

"At least the sheep got some fresh air and a night under the stars. Imagine spending your last night on Earth in a Sahara Square fleabag." Nick cast another grin over his shoulder. "He didn't even get to enjoy the bran cereal and rotten fruit that they bill as a 'continental breakfast'."

Judy gave him an exasperated look.

"And you think **I'm** a hustler..."

The coroner's photos weren't exactly putting a smile on Judy's face; the coffee in her stomach was stirring itself. "How do you know about all of this? **Why**, actually, do you know about all of this?"

"Aha!"

A manila envelope plapped atop the mound of records concealing their desk. Judy slid it closer. "What's this?"

An unsteady hand had written "Z-FILE" on the jacket in large block letters. Some additional reference numbers were scribbled along the bottom. The file looked pretty old.

Nick locked the cabinet shut. "Have you ever heard of the chupacabra?"

Judy blinked at him. "'The Sahara Square Goat-sucker?'"

"I knew you were a rabbit of the world."

"I'm from farmers, Nick. We hear all kinds of hoodoo and rumors. Such as how all foxes are untrustworthy predators; a perspective which I'm now starting to come back around on..."

"Legends of the chupacabra predate Zootopia, Judy. They go all the way back to some of the original inhabitants of these territories. The stories that were passed down in oral traditions are unified in their descriptions of a large, feral, wolf-like creature with scaly skin that comes in the night, attacking animals and draining them of their blood through three gashes in the body. Tell me that doesn't describe our case."

"There's nothing in the cases you just mentioned about any 'wolf-like creature', Nick. You-- Wait, **this** is why you begged Bogo for the case?"

"Welllll--"

"Are you crazy, Nick? I can't believe you did this! This assignment should have gone to Wolfard. Or, or McHorn!"

"Wolfard and McHorn would be treating this as a regular homicide case."

"This **is** a homicide case, Nick."

"But not a regular one. You really don't see how strange all of this is?"

"But a **chupacabra**?"

"Why? What's your explanation?"

"This is absurd! You might as well just say **vampires** did it."

Nick shook his head. "See? Now you just sound ridiculous... Hey, where are you going?"

Judy stood with the doorknob in one hand, the police report in the other. "I am going to Chief Bogo's office to beg him to reassign the case."

"Judy, don't!"

"I cannot believe that you would play games like this, Wilde. Never mind your tenuous position at the Z.P.D.; there are actual lives at stake here. Not just the people in Sahara Square; **our** lives! You know, I thought after everything we went through together and your time at the academy you might have matured a little, but you're still just cracking jokes."

"This isn't a game to me, Judy." Nick was out of his chair and walking over to where Judy stood. "I've been following this case since I was a kid. When I heard Bogo's description in the bullpen, I asked for it because it rang a bell. There's **history** here. I knew that if we didn't act this would get buried under bureaucracy and small minds the same way the Woolsworth family got buried back in '62 and Mr. Dolma was buried in 78'. Those cases were never solved, Judy. They went cold because they were treated like just another homicide investigation, looking for the simplest explanation in a complicated world. Like Bogo did with you. Like you did with me."

Judy refused to let herself react. "That's a low blow, Wilde."

"Every sixteen years, Judy. The same M.O. This pattern of homicides stretches back further than any killer on record. I mean, just look at how thick that Z-File is."

"Nick, these **mugshots** are drawn in **crayon**!"

"My mom couldn't afford colored pencils."

"**Nick**."

"Look, I'm not delusional. A paranormal explanation is just another hypothesis. Nothing more. Wherever the evidence leads us, that's where we'll go. I want to get to the bottom of whatever's happening here, same as you do."

Judy squeezed the cold steel doorknob a moment longer before letting go and crossing her arms over her chest. "Okay. Fine. We'll work the case. But we don't need some...urban legend to explain what is obviously the work of a psychotic mind."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe it will turn out to be something completely rational. If we discover that some maniac is out there in the desert hunting goats with a silly straw, we'll take him down. But I need you to be open to the possibility that there might be some phenomena at work here that can't be explained by rational science as we understand it."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want us to miss something important just because it looks weird. And I trust your eyes, carrots. I trust **you**."

Nick proffered the aged manila envelope, the envelope that Nick had made as a child, written in a child's handwriting: small and uncertain, but passionate... Judy looked at it and sighed. She reached for it when Nick yanked it back.

"Unless it's too scary for you?"

Judy stared Nick down. 

The folder plapped back onto the desk.

* * *

SAHARAH SQUARE OUTSKIRTS  
1:52 P.M.

Dust is the one defining feature of Saharah Square. It seems to gather on everything that passes by; a tithe on cleanliness and a promise of the eventual end of all things. A desolate, sun-scorched beauty spanning acres of of dust and sand and scrub.

Two scrawny bobcat children in raggedy clothes sat perched atop a saguaro. They waved at the Z.P.D. squad car as it drove by. Nick waved back.

"So how did you get started on your 'Z-Files'?" Judy asked.

"It's kind of a long story." Nick was chewing on a bag of dried blueberries he'd brought along for the road. "The short version is that after I was...jumped out of the Ranger Scouts, I had few friends and a lot of free time. Not to mention a mind freshly opened to the cruelties of this monstrous world of ours."

"Uh huh."

"I spent a lot of time down at the library. It's a good place for poor kids. Mysteries. Conspiracy theories. The occult. It all seemed to make sense of a senseless world in some way, I guess. In a way, it reaffirmed what I'd always felt."

"What's that?"

"Nothing's stable. The sky could come crumbling down on us at any moment..."

Judy glanced over at him but said nothing.

The flat wasteland stretched on, mile after mile. It felt so much smaller when zooming across the shortest gap between zones by monorail.

"So what exactly is the origin of this...chupacabra?"

Nick cleared his throat. "No one really knows for sure. The oldest stories refer to it as a malicious spirit. But I have my own theories."

"And we have ten miles to go..."

Nick leaned back in his seat. "We evolved from ancient, survivalist species. What if somehow, somewhere out there, there's something that **didn't** evolve like the rest of us? What if something has been surviving on the fringes? Hunting. Killing. A pure predator that never evolved and has never been caught?"

"In all of these years? Someone would have seen it by now."

"Maybe someone **did** see it? Maybe they just didn't know what they were looking at? A lot of bizarre behavior can be chalked up to rabies, mange, madness..."

"I suppose it's possible that some sort of...evolutionary throwback might exist somewhere out there," admitted Judy. "But evolutionary biology is notorious as a throwaway explanation. You can point at any behavior or disorder and invent some evolutionary cause to explain it--"

"Hey can you call me 'Fox' while we're on the case?"

"What? No. Why?"

"When I was a kid I always imagined myself working these cases as 'Agent Fox'. It felt so much cooler than just 'Nick Wilde.'"

"It sounds like a character out of a bad action movie."

"Could we just try it out for a little bit?"

"I am not calling you 'Fox'."

"Spoilsport." Nick popped a few more blueberries into his mouth. His tongue was turning blue.

"Do you really like blueberries that much?"

"I never liked sunflower seeds. Shells get caught in my teeth."

"What?"

"I think this is the place. On the right."

Sahara Square's dust had cast a sepia filter over the Fillerup station's pumps, the storefront, and a half-derelict junker. The station's dirt-caked windows seemed like an absurd suggestion rather than a meaningful design choice.

Judy pulled into the lot and they both got out. Nick walked over to one of the pumps, an old analog number with plastic number flaps. He ran a black paw pad across the digits, and it came back tan.

"I don't think their business is exactly booming," he said.

Judy called out, "Hello?"

The front door opened with a jingle and out stepped a camel with profound bags under his eyes.

Nick and Judy pulled out their badges.

"Special Agents Fox and Rabbit," Nick said, earning him an elbow to the thigh.

"Wilde and Hopps," Judy corrected. "Z.P.D. Are you Mr. Allbeige?"

The camel spit. "Yep."

Judy continued, "We're trying to gather more information about the homicide here last night. What can you tell us about Mr. Goatry?"

"Donny was a good kid. He worked here for, ohhhhh...two years? Always on time. Always **clean**. You know how goats are. Took over night shift last October. Never had any problem with him, until now. Hard to find good employees in the Square. Reliable ones, you know. Now I'm going to have to close up at nights, 'til I can find a replacement..."

"On the night of the incident, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?" Judy asked. "Anything strange?"

"Strange? No. Nothing. Donny came in; I went home. Came back the next day and found him lying there. Right over there. Dead as a door nail."

"No odd customers?"

"None come to mind."

Nick pointed at the CCTV camera under the eave of the pumping station. "That real?"

"Yep."

"Would you mind if we watched the tapes from last night?"

"Other cops already looked at 'em. Nothing to see, really. Donny went out to refill the windshield cleaner. He turned like he saw something. Heard something. Went to take a look. Never came back." The camel spit again. "Never did like it out here, nights"

Nick asked, "Are you from around these parts, Mr. Allbeige?"

The camel took a slightly defensive posture. "Yes I am. Grandpa was from the **real** desert. Came here with his family in ohhh...'36? Father lived in the Square all his life. Me too."

"You said you don't like the nights out here. Why's that?"

"I don't know. Not safe. No one for miles if anything happens. Sometimes you see things at night. I don't know."

"Things like a chupacabra?"

The camel looked to Judy who glared at Nick, but Nick was staring straight at Mr. Allbeige.

"What is this," the camel huffed. "Is this a **joke**?"

"Is that why you didn't report the tracks around the body?" Nick pressed on.

A flicker of recognition passed over the camel's face.

"Sand and wind could have blown any marks away by the time anyone from Z.P.D. arrived to take pictures. No awkward questions. No reason to close the gas station. No local rumors that might drive down business. Just back to work."

The camel eyed Nick with one sagging eyelid and an angry brow.

"Like I said--" Mr. Allbeige spit into the sand. The patch of earth darkened for just a second before the desert heat sucked it dry. "I don't know what I saw..."

The rest of their interview was uninformative. Judy and Nick reviewed the tapes and found them just as the manager had described. The manager seemed eager to be rid of them as they said their goodbyes and started towards the car.

"Tracks?" Judy asked once they were out of earshot of camel.

"You should have paid closer attention to my dossier," Nick replied. "Our killer has an unusual gait--bipedal with two brush marks or strokes along the sides, like they're dragging something. The nomadic tribes that frequented this region had expert trackers who described the marks to the first settlers from the west. They were recorded as local folklore, buried in sociology texts."

"Well whatever Mr. Allbeige saw, he seemed unlikely to offer any further help. And we still have at least a day at least before forensics finishes processing Mr. Goatry's remains for trace."

Nick opened the passenger-side door. "Then I guess we'd better find someplace to stay for the night."

A half hour's drive later, Nick and Judy's squad car rolled up into a parking lot shimmering in the evening heat. The dusty, sun-yellowed sign out front displayed a broad yellow hump in front of a red setting sun and the name "Continental Dunes Inn" at the top. A dingy marquee advertised "BED AN D HOT WATER; ROOMS $65". The neon vacancy sign burned brightly, even under the sweltering sun.

As they stepped out of the car, Judy sized up the sign with a profound sense of foreboding. "This wouldn't happen to be the same 'Sahara Square fleabag' the yak was staying at back in '78, would it?"

Nick smirked. "At least the office won't hassle us about our expense report."

They found an armadillo squatting behind a reception desk littered with newspapers, magazines, and fast food wrappers. Deep black wells hung under eyes that stared, not so much **at** Nick and Judy as through them.

Nick flashed his badge. "Z.P.D. Officer Fox Wilde. This is my partner uhhhhh Judy something or other. Are you the night manager here?"

"...Yeh."

"You mind if I ask a few questions?"

"Uh?"

"How's business? Full house tonight?"

"Nuh."

"Okay then, can you tell me how many rooms you have facing West?"

The vacuous gaze seemed to changed almost imperceptibly into disbelief.

"Do I need to show you my badge again?" Nick said.

A long sigh followed. "Where?"

Nick pointed over the armadillo's shoulder.

The armadillo turned back, as though he expected to see a large "W" painted on the wall behind him. He turned back slowly. "Three."

"Then we'll take all three."

The armadillo sucked in a deep breath and sighed again. He lurched to his feet, and his plated bulk waddled to the back of the office to get the keys.

Nick turned to Judy. "I might have been a little hasty in dismissing your walking dead hypothesis, carrots."

"At least they can manage hot water in a desert," Judy replied with a smirk. "Actually, I could use a shower. And some food."

"We passed a McDingo's on the highway. You get the keys. I'll run back and get us something to eat."

* * *

CONTINENTAL DUNES INN  
10:55 P.M.

"Three rooms you rented. And we're sleeping in our squad car."

Nick and Judy were parked across the road from the hotel, their car partially hidden by a bush of scrub but with a clear view of the eastern end of the hotel.

Nick was chewing on the last of their cold, soggy fries. "Every cycle of murders by our perpetrator has been marked by large body counts. **Multiple** victims. The elephant was the only one in '35, but he may have been large enough prey all by himself. My point being, one gas station attendant does not an elephant make. They'll need another victim. And now that the gas station is going to be closed nights, this is the next closest source of fresh blood. So to speak."

Judy stared blankly out of the window. "Paleoarcheologists believe that ancient predators tended to hunt in the same ranges from year to year. Their fossil remains followed the same migratory patterns as prey species. Serial killers often exhibit similar behaviors, returning to familiar ground or methods to find their victims. But why buy out the western side? Do you think our killer's habits are so specific that they would only target people on just one side of a building?"

"Maybe. But it's easier to stake out one side of a building than two. You going to eat the rest of those?"

Judy passed over her bag.

As Nick took it, he sniffed in her direction. "Didn't you say you were going to take a shower?"

"There was no shower to be taken. The much-vaunted hot water turned out to be so much hot air. And a dribble of mud."

"No truth in advertising these days."

"I didn't have the energy left to try the other two rooms. You could use a shower too. You smell like hot fox."

"Your nose is correct." He waggled his eyebrows at her.

Judy smirked. "Shut up."

Nick went back to munching leftovers. "Quiet night, so far. Looks like the only real client is that lynx in 108."

"Cougar," Judy corrected.

"You sure?"

"Definitely a cougar. My crepuscular eyes beat your predator eyes at sundown, slick."

"Okay, cougar then."

"Which isn't great bait for our stakeout," Judy continued. "Nearly all of the previous victims were herbivores."

Nick clapped his hand over his heart. "You **did** read my dossier!"

"Hey Nick, can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"When I ask this, I hope you understand that I'm asking it from a place of...compassion. And respect. And genuine affection and concern for your well-being."

"Carrots."

"Ever since this case began I've been afraid that you might be trying to, I don't know. Sabotage yourself."

"Judy..."

"That comment you made earlier...about how nothing is stable? Just tell me that you aren't trying to jeopardize your future as a police officer because you're afraid that it might actually stick this time."

"I swear this isn't that."

"Then what **is** all of this? You're such a critical fox... Why are you wasting your time chasing boogeymen in closets when there are real people with real lives that need saving?"

Nick looked away from her and sighed. After a moment, he said, "I've never really told you about my father."

Judy shifted in her seat to face him better. "You said he died when you were young. A heart attack, wasn't it?"

"It wasn't a heart attack. My father was murdered."

Judy couldn't hide her surprise. "Your mother said--"

"My father was...involved in things. Things my mom never knew about but knew enough not to ask."

"Crime syndicates?" A certain shrew sprang to mind.

"The government."

"What?"

"Dad supported us financially. He would be gone for weeks. Months at a time. 'Business trips' was all he and mom ever said about it. Whenever I'd bring it up, mom would change the subject. 'Lots of kids' parents go on business trips, Nick.' I was so young I didn't question any of it. Until the day he didn't come back at all..."

The door to room 108 opened and the cougar stepped out. Judy watched her as she crossed the building to the lobby entrance and went in to the office.

"Mom was devastated. She was still mom, but. She was never the same after that. Neither of us were. After he died--this was **years** later--I started digging through his old files, trying to piece together what he was doing for all those years. I never could determine which branches he worked for. There were project names and references to military operations, many of them on civilian soil. Even in Zootopia. I tried filing formal requests for the full documentation, but the files and the operations they referred to were redacted, top secret. A lot of them were denied to have ever existed at all. Those searches, the long hours in the library, led me to create the Z-Files. There's this whole other world of mysterious, unexplained phenomena out there, Judy: tragedies and crimes that go unexamined or get hushed up. The Z-Files aren't just a record of random paranormal phenomena. They're the world my father was a part of when he died."

"Nick. I had no idea..."

Nick looked at her with a serious, almost angry expression. "I don't know what my father was involved in or why he died, but I'm going to find out. I didn't join the Z.P.D. just to throw that opportunity away. I promise."

The silence stretched for what felt like an hour or more, until Judy broke it by opening the passenger door. "I'm going to go see if I can scrounge up some coffee," Judy said at last. "You want any?"

Nick wore an echo of his usual smirk. "You think they have imported?"

"Nick?"

"Yeah."

"Thank you for telling me."

Nick nodded.

Judy got out and started walking towards the hotel's halogen-lit portico. Her head hung in a cloud of Nick's confidences.

A breezeway connected the eastern and western sides of the hotel. On the left side of the breezeway was a soda machine with an ice box next to it. She was just passing the squeaking, rumbling ice box when she heard a glass bottle clatter in the parking lot behind her and she spun around.

Neon lights reflected off of empty blacktop.

Branches of greasewood waved in a languid breeze.

There was nothing there.

Judy's hand drifted off of her sidearm. Despite the hot night air, she felt a shiver run down her spine.

When she turned back a massive figure stood over her.

The moment shriveled under a stab of icy terror, perceptions shrinking so that details--the bright red fur, the suit and tie--struggled to coalesce before the gun was out of her holster.

"Sweet crackers, Nick. You just--" Another beat, and Judy became aware of Nick's tense posture, that his sidearm already drawn. Judy drew hers as well, reflexively snapping into a Beaver Stance.

Nick nodded towards the far end of the breezeway. Judy followed his gaze just in time to see a shadow dart behind a utility pole fifty yards away.

"I saw him moving around towards you," Nick whispered. "The bottle was me. I think I spooked him."

"Did you see what it was?"

Nick shook his head.

The shadow slipped out from behind the telephone pole and towards the hotel, disappearing from view around the corner to their right. Nick and Judy crept down the right wall all the way to the end of the portico.

Judy held up her fingers:

Three.

Two.

One.

They whipped around the corner simultaneously.

"Freeze! Hands in the air!"

A heavy metal tool box clattered to the ground.

"Who are you? What are you doing back here?"

"I'm a plumber!" The otter yelped. "I'm--Dale! Dale's Plumbing Service! God! Don't shoot! The manager called me! He said one of the showers wasn't working!"

Judy sighed and holstered her gun.

Nick shrugged. "Sorry. We're--"

A shriek echoed from the east end of the building.

Nick and Judy looked at each other. "The lynx!"

"Cougar!"

They sprinted back through the breezeway. They could both taste blood in the air.

The large cat was lying on her side, hyperventilating, pupils dilated, a deep crimson stain spreading across the back of her tee-shirt. A pile of white towels lay in a crumpled heap next to her prone body. Judy dropped down and went into emergency aid mode, with Nick scanning the lot with his gun behind her.

"He-he came out of nowhere," the Cougar stammered. "I wasn't. I-I-I-I-"

"Just stay still," Judy instructed. "I need to put pressure on the wound." Judy dialed on her cell with her other hand.

The beam of Nick's flashlight bounced over the parking lot as he ran off towards the main road.

"This is Officer Judy Hopps Badge one-nine-seven. I need immediate emergency medical transport at the Dunes Inn at Sahara Square. We have a female cougar suffering from massive blood loss. I repeat. Medical transport, Dunes Inn."

Judy's phone burbled back an E.T.A. while Nick's flashlight shone down one empty stretch of highway and then the other.

"I just...I just clawed at him, and. Is-Is-Is that blood? Oh god I'm-I'm bleeding, I..."

"Just try to stay calm, ma'am. Help is on the way." Judy pulled out her flashlight and shined it into her eyes. "Nick! She's going into hypovolemic shock."

"No tracks!" Nick shouted back. His flashlight revealed only flat, undisturbed sand and dirt. "There's nothing..."

* * *

SAHARA SQUARE HOSPITAL  
6:52 A.M.

Dr. Erin Voleson, the attending physician, stepped out of Miss Falane's room into the emergency ward's main hall where Judy and Nick were waiting. They squatted down to talk.

"Well, she's stable," said the doctor. "We gave her some painkillers. She's sleeping now."

Judy asked, "Did she say anything else?"

The doctor shook her head. "She was pretty incoherent from the blood loss and the shock of her trauma. But she seemed very confident that she never saw her assailant."

"That makes three of us," Nick muttered.

"We did manage to collect some tissue samples from under her claws. We've handed them over to Z.P.D. for analysis."

"Attacking a large cat at night?" Nick asked rhetorically. "They must have been desperate."

"They very nearly succeeded," the vole answered. "The surrounding tissues displayed severe bruising, indicating a massive amount of force behind each stab. She also seems to have been injected with some sort of anticoagulant; that's why she was bleeding so profusely. Miss Falane was extremely lucky. A little lower and they would have nicked her superior mesenteric artery and she would have bled out for sure. We're still working on identifying the anticoagulant, but it bears superficial similarities to the compound found in the other victim."

"You mean Donovan Goatry," said Judy.

"Who? I'm talking about the mule deer."

Judy and Nick exchanged a look.

Dr. Voleson's brow furrowed. "You didn't know?"

The doctor led them on a meandering path through the hospital, down an elevator, to the morgue, explaining along the way. "She was brought in this morning. Single deer, age nineteen or twenty. We believe she had gone out for a late-night jog when she was attacked just north of The Palms, by Service Road T."

The morgue was sterile: cold metal, polished surfaces, white tiles. Dr. Voleson pulled a rolling stair over to an occupied table and clambered up next to shroud. He drew it back to reveal the peaceful face of a young female deer. "No I.D. The coroner put time of death right around 11:40 A.M. Her body was found less than a half-hour later."

"That's impossible," Judy whispered.

Nick glanced over at her, but the doctor didn't seem to notice.

"Cause of death?"

"Severe blood loss leading to total organ failure. Mr. Fox, Would you please turn her over a little for me?"

Nick seemed to stiffen slightly as he took the doe's cold bicep and turned her body onto its side. He was surprised at how light she was.

The vole drew the cloth further away, revealing three puncture wounds in a downward-facing triangle on the small of her back, washed clean of blood. 

"See there? The same pattern as on Miss Falane. Looks like the same instrument as well. Only in this case we're seeing almost total exsanguination. (You can lay her back down now.) I'm used to seeing this kind of blood loss from a car accident or a mauling; not a simple stab wound."

Nick and Judy thanked Dr. Voleson and instructed him to call as soon as the toxicology reports came back.

They were walking out the main entrance into a new morning when Nick finally turned to Judy and asked what she meant by "impossible."

"It'll be easier if I show you."

Back in the squad car, Judy popped the glove box and unfolded their map of Sahara Square.

"Let's seeeee... Okay. Here. This is the hotel where we were when the cougar was attacked, right? At about 11:30 A.M."

"Uh huh?"

Judy unfolded a few more sections to the north. "And thiiiis...is Service Road T. Where the deer was killed at 11:40 A.M. Notice anything?"

Nick peered across the map. "No roads. Between the mountains and the ravines...that's gotta be a half-hour drive at least. Even Flash couldn't have gotten from the hotel to the Service Road in ten minutes."

"Is it possible the coroner messed up the time of death?" Judy asked.

"Or we have a second unsub somewhere out there." Nick scratched his chin. "Only this criminal profile doesn't suggest they're working with a partner. The attacks are too identical, and the psychology doesn't fit."

Judy shrugged. "What other possibility is there?"

Nick peered at the map again. "What's this shaded part here in the middle? All the roads diverge around that--what is it?"

Judy unfolded more of the the map. "'Rust Canyon'. Looks like a ravine. Cuts right between the hotel and the highway... That bridge we crossed on the way to the hotel passed over part of it."

"Let me see that." Nick reached into his pocket and pulled out a pencil.

Judy handed over the map. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that there is **one** way that our killer could have gotten from Falane to our Jane Doe in ten minutes or less." Nick drew a slightly curved line across the map. "What does that look like to you? That's barely a mile by air."

"The killer can **fly**..."

"Those weren't drag marks around Goatry's body. They're wing strokes. That's how it attacks and gets away without leaving behind witnesses or a trail."

"A bat?" Judy asked skeptically.

Nick replied in the same tone. "You ever heard of a bat that big?"

Judy shook her head. "No, but I'm starting to think you may have been right on this one being strange, Nick."

"I think we just figured out why the gas station attendant was killed as well. Look." Nick's finger traced the shaded line across the map. "Part of this canyon runs right next to the gas station. It's stalking the ravine looking for prey."

Judy leaned back into her seat. "There are old mines and natural caves all down through that canyon. We learned about it in grade school. The killer might be hiding in there. But there's no telling where they might be..."

"That's where your partner comes in." Nick grinned and pointed at his face. "Z.P.D.'s finest muzzle comes equipped with enough chemical-sensing equipment to tell bat guano apart from Wolfard's coffee up to a quarter mile away."

Judy picked up the radio. "This is officer Judy Hopps, badge number one-nine-seven. Put me through to Chief Bogo of the Z.P.D. Over."

* * *

SAHARA SQUARE  
RUST CANYON  
4:02 P.M.

The cliff faces' orange and yellow striations strobed with flashes of red and blue light, creating a cacophony of color. The sun had already peaked over the deep valley and was starting its descent, casting a veil over the mine's entrance. Five squad cars sat in the valley while two others blocked the only road down.

Chief Bogo stood in the middle of the scrum, organizing teams and consulting intermittently with an ancient-looking porcupine whom the central office had sent over with a cartography map of the ruins.

Nick and Judy stood together off to the side. Judy tightened down the straps on her small kevlar vest.

"I was browsing the Z.P.D. records while we were waiting, and I think I found something," said Nick. "Buried in the usual assaults, batteries, and thefts from back when these mines were operational, there was a series of reports about a colony of bats squatting in these caves. Vagrants. The miners ran into them when they went down to work one day, and the claim owners called in local police to chase them off. Only the bats kept coming back. They kept hiding deeper and deeper in the caverns. One day they just vanished. Everyone assumed they had finally taken the hint and moved on. The mine closed down a few years after that and no one followed up on it."

Judy unholstered and examined her sidearm. "You think our perp is a 200-year-old bat?"

"It may not be the original family, but maybe their descendants? These mines were rich in heavy metals, uranium... What if they've been deep underground all this time? Inbreeding. Feeding on the insect life... Mutating? The report didn't specify what kind of bats they were, but it's not a far stretch to think they might have been blood-suckers. What if one of their offspring found their way back out again and has been attacking people off and on ever since?"

"There's a problem with that theory," said Judy.

"A problem?"

"A few holes in it, actually: three of them. Vampire bat bites produce one, maybe two puncture wounds. Not three."

"Anything that would cause a bat to grow tenfold in size could also have caused all kinds of irregularities to their dentation."

"Okay, but there's something else." Judy slid the magazine back into her handgun with a click. "Vampire bats don't hibernate for winter. They prefer tropical environments and eat all year 'round. A desert cave would have been too arid and cold for that family 200 years ago. And if our killer was **migratory** like the bats in the police report, then we should be seeing victims all along their flight path instead of just this one region. Nick, it doesn't add up."

"So what are you suggesting?"

Judy holstered her sidearm. "I'm suggesting...that we should be ready for whatever it is that we find down there."

Chief Bogo's baritone boomed through the desert air: "--officers Hopps and Wilde will be on point for this operation--"

In Nick's periphery, Judy's ears were bobbing up and down along with the rest of her body, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Nervous?" 

Judy grinned up at him. "We're in a **raid**! I get to lead a **raid**!"

"Never say I don't take you out to nice places."

"--going to give you a briefing on what we have so far. Officer Wilde?"

"Oop. Here I go." Nick straightened his tie and put on an uncharacteristically serious face. He looked like the day he was sworn in. A faint smile touched Judy's mouth.

"We believe our suspect is a flying mammal, possibly a bat. We don't have any physical description to go on. We only know that he--or she--is large, strong, and extremely aggressive. They nearly killed a cougar last night, so they aren't afraid of predators. And he has the home field advantage here, so stay alert. Our killer follows a serial pattern and they may have already succeeded in hitting their quota for this cycle. If we don't catch them now, they may ghost on us and won't have another chance for sixteen years..."

Chief Bogo cut in. "Heads and ears on swivel. Stay in radio communication. You teams watching the cave entrances: if any of you feels like blinking, you clear it with me first. We'll have three teams sweeping the corridors. Nick and Judy will be team A; Lupo and Yoote, you're team B; McHorn and the stinker are team C. Move quickly. Move quietly. Let's catch this son of a bitch."

* * *

The caves lay still. And silent. And empty.

Mine carts rusted on motionless wheels.

Ancient picks moldered with no hands to lift them.

A parallel line of cart tracks traced a tarnished silver path ever deeper into the cliffs.

In one tunnel, a circle of light danced along a wall like a ghost, haunting a darkness that had gone unbroken for centuries.

Nick and Judy padded down the thin corridor, flashlights and sidearms drawn, scanning the walls, floors, and ceiling for anything out of the ordinary. Nick's feet were already so caked with dust that they were as grey as Judy's.

They had been walking in silence for about five minutes, when the radio crackled weakly again with teams B and C checking in.

Judy's light swept over wooden beams that looked almost petrified. "So what's your nose telling you, hotshot?" she said to Nick.

Nick sniffed. "I'm not getting anything down here."

"Nothing at all?"

"Just rocks. Sand. Bicentennial ox sweat."

Judy nodded towards a split in the tunnel ahead. "This is the first junction."

Nick shivered. "I do not like the idea of getting lost down here..."

"I can hold your hand if you're scared."

Nick shot her a look. Judy held her paw out to him and made a pouty face.

"Cut it out carrots."

"Okay, 'Fox'."

They followed the left path on a downward slope, the air temperature dropping the deeper they went.

"No tracks," said Judy.

"They might have flown in," said Nick.

"Yeah..."

"I'm more concerned at the absence of guano. If this was just some feral killer, I should be catching scent of something. Scat. Urine. But there's nothing down here. It's almost more like..."

"Like what?"

Nick hesitated and smirked self-deprecatingly. "...It's like being in a tomb."

* * *

Officers Lupo and Yoote walked in a staggered formation, with Lupo in front. Their flashlights swept over cavern walls and floor. They were in one of the many natural caverns that interwove with the mine shafts. Damp, scalloped mineral deposits all across the floor made for unsteady walking.

Their flashlights caused shadows to leap and caper across the cavern walls. But their nocturnal, predators' eyes--over five-billion years of evolution between the two canids--saw and heard more than any rabbit or even any fox would in this unfathomable gloom.

Yet even with their predatory senses, they didn't see one of the stalactites behind them detach itself from the ceiling.

They didn't hear it drop, silently, to the cavern floor.

They didn't feel the stale, hungry breath rushing towards their backs...

* * *

A shriek echoed through the caverns. Two gunshots banged down the halls.

Then silence.

Nick and Judy froze where they stood, ears twisting this way and that.

Nick squeezed his shoulder mic: "This is team A. We just heard shots fired, repeat, shots fired. All teams report in. Over."

Officer McHorn's deep voice growled through the static: "Team C, reporting in. We heard it too. Over."

Again, silence.

"Lupo and Yoote," said Nick.

"This way!"

Indistinct walls of stone flew by the two of them. Adrenaline turned the tunnels under flashlight into a series of disjointed impressions and angles as they raced ahead to the first rendezvous point, then cut back along team B's path.

Judy heard the growls well before they got there; Nick smelled the blood.

Officer Yoote was crumpled on the ground with Officer Lupo curled over him protectively, his fur and handgun raised, teeth bared, a wild look in his eyes.

Judy dropped down beside them and started checking Yoote. Nick radioed in an officer down.

"It came from behind us," Lupo growled, refusing to let go of his partner. "Grabbed Yoote. Tried to carry him off. I shot twice and it dropped him."

"Did you see which way did it went?" asked Nick.

Officer Lupo shook his head. "He's a **fast** son of a bitch."

"These cuts look like claw marks," said Judy. "Bruises from the fall... Probably a concussion. It doesn't look like he was bitten. He should be okay, but he needs immediate medical attention."

"Guess it wasn't hungry," Nick said sardonically.

"It wasn't a bat," said Lupo."

Judy got to her feet. "You saw it? What was it?"

"I don't know. Something else." Lupo looked up at Nick. There was real fear in those eyes. "It wasn't a bat."

"Well so much for the element of surprise," Nick muttered.

"Maybe not," said Judy. "Look."

Judy's flashlight shone over a darkly gleaming patch of rock face a few feet away. Nick sidled up for a closer look. Some kind of ichorous substance had spattered across the stalagmites--it wasn't blood; not exactly. It smelled off.

"Looks like you got one good shot in."

Officer Lupo spit. "Hope it rots."

"We don't have the luxury of hope," said Nick. "I'm going after it."

"Nick, we have to wait for team C."

Nick turned to Lupo. "You can carry Yoote, right?"

Lupo nodded.

"The trail leads away from Team B's entrance. I'm not letting this thing kill again."

Judy hesitated, conflicted. Finally, she radioed out, "Central, this is Team A. Team B is heading back to cave entrance with one injured officer. Team A has a trail on the suspect and is in pursuit. Over."

* * *

The black spatterings flew this way and that, across floor, wall, and ceiling, ever deeper into the endless series of tunnels. Nick made an aside about gingerbread houses a few moments before the passage opened into a vast open cavern. Judy's flashlight glinted off of something metallic on the floor.

"What's that?"

Nick's paws sifted through the chill dust, drawing out a tiny golden locket. 

A few yards away, the dust poked up into a mound of odd shapes. Judy hunkered down to examine them. "They're bones."

"Bones?"

Judy blew, and a cloud lept into the air. The obdurate stone floor grew talons, fangs, eye sockets. Incredibly spindly fingers stretched from the ends of the arms. "They're bats. Four, five... Six of them."

Nick stood up and wiped his paws. "I think we just found our squatters."

"If they were the start of a lineage shouldn't there be more bodies down here than just six?"

"Well," Nick started, "maybe they--"

Something fell to the ground near Nick's foot with a faint "plit".

The beam of Judy's flashlight focused just a few inches to Nick's right, where a tarry black substance was seeping into the dust.

In one deft movement, Nick dropped to the floor, turning as he fell. His flashlight came up, illuminating a vast black shape descending over him. Nick's sidearm exploded as he pulled the trigger--three slugs, center mass. In the enclosed stone chamber, the reports sent screaming pain into his and Judy's ears.

As if it had been yanked on a string, the black shape suddenly shifted momentum in midair and swept off in a different direction.

Nick scrambled to his feet. "Where is it?" He could barely hear his own voice over the ringing in his ears.

Judy's flashlight darted from wall to wall.

"Where did it go?"

"There!"

A seeping stain stretched away towards another yawning cave mouth.

Nick was on his feet and running. Judy's yelling voice was muffled to insignificance by ringing tinnitus and pumping adrenaline.

Tunnels twisted this way and that, a labyrinth of endless night marked only by the black blood of its master.

The path was climbing steadily upwards. Nick's idle nose began to scent fresh air just as wooden joists began to rib the walls again.

Nick stopped at a blind corner, catching his breath. In his right ear, the radio was sizzling with chatter that he couldn't think or hear clearly enough to respond to. A very faint glow of bronzy daylight pooled on the floor near his feet.

Nick closed his eyes, sucked in his breath and swept around the corner...

About fifty yards of tunnel lay between Nick and open daylight. And between the two, nearly filling the tunnel, loomed a massive black silhouette.

"I am officer Nick Wilde of the Zootopia Police Department." Nick sucked in gasping, ragged breaths. "You are under arrest. We have the area surrounded. There's nowhere for you to run. Don't. Move."

The black shape shifted, ever so slightly. Nick's aim was steady. "Don't."

Nick's nocturnal eyes could perceive nothing in that dark shape. All of his ancient predatory instincts were screaming, "Run! Run! Run!" He felt his hackles rise and his fur standing on end. His lips curled back in an involuntary snarl.

Standing there Nick experienced the uncanny feeling that it was no trick of the light he was seeing, but rather that the night itself had eyes...and was watching him. 

But Nick's aim was still steady.

Suddenly, the shadow bolted, not towards Nick, but away, flapping away on massive wings towards the fading amber light outside.

Nick's feet felt stupid and slow to catch up, like running in a nightmare. He clutched at his mic and yelled, "He's heading for the exit! Watch the exits!"

The glow from the cave mouth turned from luminous to blinding, the shadow seeming to fade into a corona of painful, glaring daylight. A wall of hot air rushed in against Nick's muzzle. A hideous shriek from the creature echoed back into the caves as Nick burst out into white-hot desert air.

Nick's eyes watered, sunblinded. He shook his head and blinked, willing them to see again. Gradually, the world faded back into view. His gun snapped up in front of him; to the sides; to the sky.

There was nothing there.

Nothing.

Nick's shoulder squawked with the tinny voice of Officer Washer, crouched thirty yards below with Officer Wolfson behind their squad car's doors: "We have eyes on Wilde. No sign of the suspect. Over."

Nick coughed for breath. His fur still prickled up on end unpleasantly. His handgun drooped to the ground.

At Nick's feet lay only a scattering of grey ash and sand.

Across the whispering desert, the wind blew only dust.

* * *

TO: Z.P.D. CHIEF BOGO

FIELD REPORT BY OFFICER JUDY HOPPS, Ctd. (page 7 of 7)

and is expected to make a full recovery in two to six weeks.

The toxicology report on the three victims determined that the anticoagulant was biological in origin, but the exact compound and its mechanism of action are unknown and undocumented in medical literature. It is not any compound known to exist in vampire bat saliva, which strongly suggests a different species of predator altogether, though what species we cannot say.

I regret to report that all of the suspect's blood samples, taken from both the cavern as well as from under the claws of Miss Falane, have been lost. Initially, we believed this was due to gross negligence in evidence collection and handling protocols, but on closer examination we now believe that the blood samples experienced a heretofore unheard-of form of hyperoxidization, leaving behind only traces of carbon. The "grey ash" that Officer Wilde discovered at the mouth of the cave also appears to be made up of this same carbon residue, along with a few other trace chemical compounds.

While the exact mechanism of this hyperoxidization remains unclear, it has been speculated that it is accelerated by an intense form of photosensitivity, though it is by no means a prerequisite to trigger the reaction. A return expedition to the caves for additional samples revealed that all traces of the suspect's blood have suffered a similar rapid decomposition.

The six skeletal remains discovered in the lower caverns were transported to the morgue, and a thorough post-mortem is being conducted. Although we have no D.N.A. records from two centuries ago to match the remains against, strong circumstantial evidence leads us to believe that they are in fact the remains of the disappeared family of bats which Officer Wilde found records of in the mine reports. The exact nature of their death remains unknown, though scratch marks on the bones seem to suggest that foul play was involved.

The whereabouts of the suspect and their means of escape remain a highly speculative mystery. It is this officer's hypothesis that, as the suspect fled towards the mouth of the cave, they used the sudden change of light to conceal themselves against the roof of the passage, allowing Officer Wilde to pass by underneath, before fleeing back into the tunnels below. However, neither blood, nor tracks, nor markings on the roof were found to substantiate such a hypothesis.

Officer Wilde's own hypothesis, that the suspect may have disintegrated instantaneously on contact with sunlight due to the same hyperoxidization observed in the suspect's blood samples, seems implausibly far-fetched.

No other explanations are yet forthcoming.

In the days proceeding our suspect's disappearance, no new victims or sightings have been reported, which suggests that either the suspect has succumbed to the injuries inflicted by officers Wilde and Lupo, or they have already succeeded in procuring their victims for this cycle and returned into their dormant state, wherever and whatever that may be. Further exploration of the caves has been discontinued for our officers' safety due to the unstable condition of the mines.

This case has left a great many questions unanswered; more questions than we began with, perhaps. As to the most pertinent question--the question of whether this will happen again in sixteen years--it is this officer's belief that the only way by which we will arrive at certain answer, disconsolate as it may be, is to wait.

* * *

Nick swept through the office door with a flourish. "Your hero has returned."

"By all rights you should have been suspended," Judy muttered.

"Is it true that the chief yelled so loud that it made Clawhauser drop his coffee?"

Judy closed the medical examiner's report and looked up at Nick. "How was it? Seriously?"

"Bogo was a little miffed that we had so little to show after two homicides, a attempted third, and an attack on a police officer. But I think he recognized that we'd made the best out of a bad situation. As far as top brass is concerned, this case is closed with the suspect presumed dead. Plus we did solve a two-hundred-year-old old missing persons case..."

Judy inclined her head in reserved agreement.

"What's that?" asked Nick.

Judy looked down at the folder in her lap. "Your two-hundred-year-old missing persons."She flipped through the report again. "Latest autopsy report suggests that the scrapings along the vertebrae may have been caused by our suspect's fangs. That would explain cause of death, except the coroner is having some difficulty determining whether the skull fractures on the victims occurred pre- or post-mortem..."

Nick grunted as he settled into his chair. "Not sure why you're so obsessed with those bats. Is this a new thing with you? Maybe we should start calling you..."

"Skull-y?"

"I was thinking 'Bones'."

"I think I'll stick with 'carrots' if that's alright."

Nick shrugged. He picked up the baseball on his desk and started tossing it from hand to hand. The rats had finally cleared out most of the old files so the two of them had space to breathe in.

"At least you can put this Z-File behind you, for now," said Judy.

"Not quite." The ball arced up high and landed in his hand.

"What else is there?"

"Someone's been through my files."

Judy looked up at that. "What?"

"Must have been while we were down in the caves. When we came back that night, I went to file the chupacabra away and several of my files were out of order. Whoever it was, they even earmarked a few of them. Including this one."

Nick handed Judy a relatively thin Z-File that had been tucked under a mound of paperwork. She opened it to the first page, where a familiar face stared up at her.

"You have a Z-File on Bellwether? I'll admit, the case was odd, but I wouldn't have thought it was Z-worthy."

"Not at first, no," Nick agreed. "But then I started digging around, asking questions. How exactly did a city sheep like Bellwether even hear about 'night howlers' in the first place?"

"She read about it. It's an obscure toxin, but it's not totally unheard-of."

"Where could she have found the funding and the talent for such a sensitive, prolonged terrorist operation? She wasn't exactly connected with organized crime or flush with cash."

A troubled expression settled into Judy's features.

"Did you know that of the members of the Bellwether conspiracy, she's the only one still alive? While the news was fixated on the "trial of the century", both of her cronies died in mysterious accidents. One was hit by a truck. The other 'fell' out of his apartment window."

"Where exactly are you going with this, Nick?"

"What if Bellwether wasn't just some rogue fascist? What if she was a dupe? What if the whole thing was actually a testing ground for some grander design?"

"What motive could possibly justify such a conspiracy?"

"What do the heads of any consumerist society want? Control. Order. Profit. Imagine the political and military applications of a chemical agent that can turn any predator into a mindless killing machine..."

Judy sat pondering over Bellwether's mugshot. That scowling face...

"I noticed you haven't said anything about the poster," said Nick.

Judy glanced up at him. "I was afraid to ask."

"You don't think it adds a little..._je ne sais quoi_ to our dungeon?"

"'I want to believe'?"

"I saw it in a store a few months after we caught Bellwether. It reminded me of that day under the bridge. It was the first time in a long time that I wanted believe in anyone other than myself."

Judy smiled. "I think the U.F.O. is a little much. Some of the officers are already calling you 'spooky'; they might think you're chasing after little green men."

"That's absurd," Nick said with a laugh. "Who would ever believe in **aliens**?"

**Author's Note:**

> Jellyfish Merchant of Love, here,
> 
> I hope you liked the story! Let me know if you want to read more. There are plenty of other Z-Files in Agent 'Fox''s cabinet and plenty of mysteries to go with them...


End file.
